


Blue (Hey Brother)

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Series: Blue [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Fluff, Healing, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 18:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20894447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: Erwin left him a weeping wound. Levi doesn't remember when it healed.





	Blue (Hey Brother)

**Author's Note:**

> some nonlinear/backwards storytelling.

Levi moves slowly, unlocking the door gently, closing it with a soft, barely audible click. He kicks off his shoes, listening intently for the signs of life within his home. When he finds none in the downstairs after washing his hands, he ascends the stairs and goes up to their bedroom; that’s where he finds Nanaba, lounging in the recliner they bought several months ago, her lap fluffy with the nursing pillow, their son nestling close to her breast. The newborn’s cheeks move with lazy, sleepy nursing. 

His wife sleeps lightly these days, even though he knows how exhausted she is, and she blinks awake at him as soon as he gets close.

“Hey,” she whispers, then yawns. One hand comes to rub her eyes and she looks down, assessing their son. “Oh, he’s still eating.”

“What a life,” Levi murmurs, smile on his lips. He closes the distance and leans down for Nana’s waiting kiss before greeting his son with a barely-there forehead kiss. “Are you hungry?”

Nana hums her yes, carefully gathering their son up in her arms to deposit him in the bassinette beside the bed. After a brief startle, the newborn settles right back down into dreams, and Nana breathes with immense relief as she waddles over to the bathroom. 

Today was Levi’s first day back doing tattoos after their family welcomed more, and even though it was nice to be out of the house, he kept finding himself thinking of returning. Nana’s created a nest of belongingness within these walls, her maternal hormones saturating all the surfaces. All he wanted, all day, was to come home.

Downstairs in the kitchen together, Nana insists on cooking something, working back up her energy for everyday household tasks, so Levi, though he stays right there with her, allows it. He stands behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, so used to the firm belly that the greeting softness still catches him off guard. He held her this same way two weeks ago, water bath, midwife directing the efforts and the strain. He held her this way as she brought into the world the life she nurtured with her own body. Every day, she amazes him. Every day, he wonders what took him so long to be amazed by her.

They have history enough that would’ve made anyone less committed leave. But their forearms hold matching tattoos and a single, aligned cut through their skins to form a blood oath: _ I won’t leave you. _

* * *

Seven years after Erwin leaves, Levi acknowledges his sin and weeps his repentance into her still-flat belly. On the countertop, the awaited positive smiles its congratulatory grin. Nana forgives him ten thousand times over.

Six and a half years after Erwin leaves, Levi smokes his last cigarette. He itches and snaps a little too often, but his wife assures him that it’s okay, she understands it’s hard to quit a habit so suddenly. She helps him replace his nicotine with a healthy stress outlet, and after a month, the smell of smoke doesn’t entice so alluringly. 

Six years post-Erwin, and they finally talk about it. Let’s make love, let’s make a baby, baby. Something hangs in the air that neither of them want yet to talk about, because the pain of it has always been there in Nana, but it’s just now diffused into Levi and the sting astounds him. The fact that _ it stings him _ leaves him breathless.

Somewhere in between all of this, they leave the apartment. It’s a rebirth, Nanaba jokes. Levi looks at the congregation of potted plants on the stoop of their new little home and takes his first breath as a new man.

It takes five years, but Levi does right by her. He honours her the way she should have always been honoured. He surrenders a surname for sharing, takes the charge of her before a justice of the peace. It’s the right thing, it’s the thing he should have done a long time ago.

“No,” Nana disagrees. “_ Now’s _ the right time.”

Four years and eleven months after Levi nearly kills himself, he turns to Nanaba one night on the balcony. They’re surrounded by her flowers, her plants. He’s overwhelmed at the sight of cracked pots held together with duct tape and sustaining blossoms. Levi doesn’t have a ring, doesn’t even know he’s going to do it until that moment, but regardless, he drops to one knee. 

Three years after Erwin leaves, Levi feels that two years of various therapies have given him the tools he needs. And right beside him, she marches along. Couples therapy, individual therapy; mending therapy, making them whole. Levi always thought he needed someone filling the gap in his heart, but he’s always been an entire person by himself, just like she is her own person. And he looks at her with new eyes, new heart, and he sees: she doesn’t complete him, she is not a piece, but rather, she builds him up. He wants to build her up, too.

\--Levi doesn’t even remember what they’re fighting about, on the anniversary of Erwin leaving, on the anniversary of cutting the vessels in his forearm clean through, only four days after he concussed her and perforated her eardrum. But Nanaba screams _ at _ him. She opens her mouth and screams and fights back against him and she says that she has had enough.

“You would _ kill me _ ,” she sobs, “and I would _ let _ you!”

In the face of her self-defense, Levi transfers his aggression elsewhere that he knows will hurt her, knocking all the plants off the balcony. Sickening shatters come in quick staccato. She’s gonna_ leave, _ he’s gonna lose her, and then _ no one will be there _ when he self-destructs. 

They crash together with tear-streaked faces on the kitchen floor.

“Don’t go,” Levi begs, hands on her shaking shoulders. He’s got no pride in the face of solitude. He won’t survive another abandonment. He _ needs _ her. 

“I won’t,” Nana promises. “Didn’t I tell you that? I’ll stay.” She wipes at his cheeks. “But that’s enough, Levi. I can’t let you kill me.”

In the morning, Levi rolls over on the couch and he finds Nana’s plants, bruised but redeemed, salvaged from the sidewalk, repairing themselves in cups and bowls with shrapnel-filled soil.

\--Levi doesn’t remember what she says or what she does, but he remembers the lightning bolt that runs through him when he lifts to skillet and smashes it into the side of her head. He remembers feeling a moment of immense relief as she collapses like a controlled demolition. Even more clear in his head is the moment he realises that she is out cold and bleeding from her ear.

The hospital staff are quick to rush her into triage when he limps in, practically carrying her over his shoulders in an uncoordinated jumble. A concussion at minimum, they quickly diagnose, whisking her away.

He braces himself for the question, and when it comes, he knows he can’t deny it. He can’t deny what he’s done because it’s been getting out of hand. Even the new apprentice at the shop asked why Levi is so fucking mean to Nana, and being asked so directly like that, Levi hadn’t been able to answer. 

With nicotine itching, Levi waits. He’s got the holding cell all to himself, and he’s just getting comfortable when the deputy comes and unlocks the barred door with a gruff, “Come on, Ackerman. You’re bein’ released.”

There’s a shock of anger followed by numb acceptance. Of fucking course she won’t press charges. For the first time, he thinks he deserves punishment. He thinks, fleetingly, briefly, that... maybe he should change.

* * *

For so long, Erwin left him a weeping wound. Levi can’t remember when that laceration healed like time healing all wounds, like time and therapy and Nana helping to make him a man. Holding his son, rocking the child born of his flesh and her flesh combined in holy union, Levi turns his face to the warm future.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading the Blue AU.  
i couldn't do it without you.


End file.
